“I kind of feel sorry for her,” Angelle said, ignoring her question. “It’s like she actually believed that we cared about her.”

“Where. Is. He?” Amelia asked again, enunciating every word in a short and clipped tone. Her heart was jumping in her throat and her palms began to sweat. And at that moment, she didn’t know what scared her more, the possibility that Mitchell could already be dead, or the idea that he could here right now, watching, without her even knowing it.

“Not important, Amelia,” Josh said, and he moved a little closer, pressing against her side.

She turned to Josh and was about to order him to help the others, when a deep velvety voice said, “I’m right here, love.”

“Mitchell?” she said, turning towards the sound of his voice. When she laid her eyes on him, her body ached. Sexiest man alive, she thought, taking in his messy hair and noticing the soft curls that he always tried to hide with gel. His sky blue eyes and chiseled frame looked even better than she remembered, and she longed to run her fingers along his muscled chest and rippling abs. She licked her lips, and he extended his hand to her.

Amelia felt her legs move. She couldn’t stop them, and she would have been lying if she had said she wanted to stop them from closing the distance between herself and Mitchell. She heard him call her name, Amelia, but his lips did not move. The soft velvet of his voice filled her thoughts, and her heart fluttered erratically. The bond. It’s back. It’s fixed. Amelia just knew it, and she took another step.

Josh stepped in front of her, and his lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear him. His eyes were wide, panic marred his face, and for a moment, Amelia stopped walking. She titled her head from side to side, trying to read his lips, and she pulled at her earlobe, as if to loosen the clog.

Come to me, Amelia. Mitchell’s voice was loud and clear in her mind, and just like that, she stepped around Josh and began to move again. Mitchell’s voice was like a song that spoke to her heart, and enveloped her in warmth. She looked at him; his cloudy white eyes, like creamy milk, took her breath away.

Creamy milk? She knew that seemed wrong but … She didn’t even like milk, well unless it was chocolate. And then she saw his lips—full and seriously kissable—twitch upwards into a devilishly, sexy smile, and right then, Amelia was pretty sure her heart stopped beating.

A strong hand planted itself in the center of her chest. She pushed against it and swiped at it, but it wouldn’t move. She growled in frustration, her eyes locked on Mitchell, and without thought, she let loose an electric charge. White-blue electricity rushed along her skin, and jagged lines of lightning shot out. And then the hand was gone, and she was moving again. And the only thing she saw was Mitchell.

Amelia placed her hand in his, and he pulled her tightly against his lithe chest. He smelled good. The tangy spice surrounded her, and her skin tingled. “Do you trust me?” he whispered, his warm breath puffing against her ear.

“Yes,” she breathed. She trusted him with her life.

“And you love me?” he questioned, and his voice grew deeper—eager. He searched her face with confused eyes, and his bottom lip quivered slightly.

“Always,” she answered.

Mitchell arched a brow, and his sweet smile vanished. “Why?” He seemed so confused, lost, and alone.

Amelia placed a hand on his cheek, caressing it softly, and brushed away his soft, wavy hair out of his eyes. “Because you are mine, and I am yours.”

“So I own you?”

“What?” Own me? That sounded wrong and cold and dangerous. Warning bells were ringing in her brain. Something was wrong. She knew that. She could feel it, but being in his arms … it just felt so right, and she felt herself relax further into his embrace.

“You said that you are mine,” he stated with a matter-of-fact tone.

“I am,” she agreed, because in that moment, she knew she always would be. She was his, fully and completely, forever.

He brushed her long curls from her neck, and lazily ran his fingers along her jaw to her ear and over her collarbone. She shuddered with pleasure. Her skin felt as if it was on fire, sparks igniting beneath his fingertips. She closed her eyes; her knees grew weak.

“What have you done to my mark?” Mitchell’s voice boomed. Amelia’s eyes flew open. A pinprick of red flared in the center of his eyes. She hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath until the air hit her burning lungs. Confusion, love, anger, and something else that Amelia couldn’t place passed across his face, and then his fangs snapped down like two sharp daggers. He tightened his arm around her waist, and glared furiously at her. “You say you are mine, but yet you have removed my name?” he seethed.

“I … I … I am yyyyours,” she stammered, suddenly all too aware that she had no idea how she had ended up in his arms. The nearby screams and pandemonium hit her hard and fast, like steel drums ringing in her ears.

He lowered his head, and his nostrils flared. “Who have you let touch you?” he demanded. When she didn’t answer, he yelled, “Who!”

“Let her go, fanger,” Josh spat.

Mitchell laughed. He locked eyes with Amelia and said, “Do not struggle. You will stay right here with me.” And then he spun Amelia around, pulling her back against his chest. “Stay out of this, hunter,” he snarled at Josh. “She’s mine. She said so herself.”

Amelia watched in horror as Josh notched an arrow on the bowstring and raised the bow, drawing the arrow, and aiming it at Mitchell. She couldn’t stop herself from wishing she wasn’t so short, her head only coming to the base of Mitchell’s neck. If she was just a few inches taller … “Josh, don’t hurt him,” she shrieked.

Mitchell’s muscles tightened against her back, and he pressed his lips against her ear. His heavy intakes of breath sounded like she was caught in a wind tunnel. “It’s him,” he snarled. “You let my enemy touch you. I can smell him in your hair, on your clothes.” He pressed his nose against her neck, running it down and along her shoulder. “His scent is on your skin.”

“Mitchell, I,” Amelia started, but then the kiss she shared with Josh played across her mind, and her voice caught in her throat as tears welled up in her eyes. And just like that, all the fight left her, and she said, “Yes, I let him touch me.”

Mitchell made a sound somewhere in between a snarl, a sigh, and a gasp, and it sounded sad and angry and utterly broken. And it made her heart break. She knew it was her imagination. But part of her wanted to believe that he was actually sad about it, and she hung onto that as if it was a lifeboat. Maybe he could still feel? Hadn’t Erin shown some of that in turning Lucy? Maybe, just maybe, he was still her …

His fangs suddenly ripped into her skin, with a force she had never felt before. It burned, and as he drank, she was certain that he was going to suck every last drop of blood out of her. She wondered why she was not fighting and why she was not scared. A small voice in her head whispered, Persuasion. And oddly, it didn’t bother her.

Amelia’s knees began to shake, her eyelids grew heavy, and then she felt cold and disconnected, as if she was teetering on the edge of a cliff. “You need to run,” Mitchell growled in her ear, but she couldn’t move. “Run before I kill you!”

And then Amelia was running.

Her legs trembled with every step, and she stumbled and fell to her knees. Wind whipped around her. Gold and white and blue lines flashed on all sides with dizzying swirls. The air crackled with electricity, and a silky voice began to chant with a rhythmic beat. “Shield this town and keep all who are here within. Shield this town and keep all who are here within.” And then another voice joined and another and another, and the energy increased, pressing on her from all sides. “Shield this town and keep all who are here within.”

“Stop,” Amelia yelled, as she struggled to get to her feet. “You can’t lock these people in here!”

A hand clasped around her forearm and yanked her to her feet. “You should have kept running,” Mitchell said with heart wrenching pain in his voice. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Those words held so much confusion that Amelia couldn’t help but look at him.

Mitchell’s arm ignited in flames, and he roared out in pain. He dropped his grip on her, and shoved her away from the fire, as if he was trying to protect her. Someone picked her up, and she screamed. Suddenly Erin was there, throwing Mitchell to the ground and stomping out the fire.

“Josh, get her out of here!” Mitchell hollered. “Take the hunters and run!”

CHAPTER 15

Mitchell threw Erin off of him and pulled himself to his feet as the last of the flames died out. Those damn hunters had been a thorn in his side for hundreds of years and frankly, he was done with it—done with them. This time they had gone too far, especially that one who had his paws all over Amelia. He knew he was being a hypocrite; he had just told the fool to take her and run, but seeing him grope her was more than he could take. From the sides he noticed his people moving in. “Let them go,” he said with unbridled anger. His heart squeezed as he watched Josh help Amelia into a Jeep, his hand lingering far too long on her thighs.

“You are no fun,” Angelle whined, stomping her feet on the ground. “You should have killed her.”

“Angelle, how many times do I have to tell you? We don’t kill the pets,” Mitchell said distractedly, scanning his numbers. His eyes settled on a small girl, a child really. She was petite, with sharp features and dirty blond hair, and she clung to one of his children.

“But …” Angelle whined. Engines rumbled to life in the distance, and the mob of hunters filed out onto the road, keeping the straggling humans in the center as they ran.

“No,” Mitchell said, raising a hand to silence her. “I want to have some fun with them. And with her.” He narrowed his eyes, watching the Jeep race from the parking lot, and for just a second, he wondered why none of the hunters had attacked. Surely his small numbers were no match for that horde. Could Amelia have ordered them not to? If she did, why? It wasn’t until he had threatened her life that one of them finally acted. Why was nothing making any sense?